Charithra Chandran

Charithra Surya Chandran is a British actress born on 17 January 1997. She is best known for her television work, including her role as Sabina Pleasance in the Amazon spy thriller Alex Rider and her portrayal of Edwina in the Netflix period drama series Bridgerton. Her career spans television, feature films, stage performances, and audio productions, with screen projects including the films How to Date Billy Walsh and Fight or Flight alongside the live-action series One Piece.

Chandran was born in Perth, Scotland, to parents who were Tamil medical professionals. Following her parents' separation when she was two years old, she moved to India with her father and lived with her grandparents in Tamil Nadu. Upon returning to the United Kingdom at age four, she attended school in Liverpool, England. From the ages of six to eleven, she boarded at Moreton Hall Preparatory School in Suffolk before settling in Oxford with her mother for her teenage years while her father resided in Wales.

Chandran completed sixth form at Oxford High School and subsequently attended New College at the University of Oxford, graduating in 2019 with a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy, politics and economics. While at university, she participated in several productions and joined the National Youth Theatre. Following a gap year during which she pursued drama as a hobby, she decided to pursue acting as a career and turned down a job offer from BCG. She worked part-time for the New Policy Institute and worked in 2021 as a research assistant on a project regarding electoral symbols and vote choice in India, which was published in 2024 in the journal Political Science Research and Methods.

Chandran's television career began when she joined the main cast of the IMDb TV spy thriller series Alex Rider for its second series as Sabina Pleasance. Having auditioned before the first series aired, she achieved further prominence in 2022 starring as Edwina in the second series of the Shondaland-produced Netflix period drama Bridgerton, based on the novel The Viscount Who Loved Me, alongside Jonathan Bailey and Simone Ashley.

In June 2022, Chandran voiced the courtesan Camille for BBC Radio 3 in an audio adaptation of Pam Gems' play Camille, based on the novel La Dame aux Camélias by Alexandre Dumas fils; the production was shortlisted for Best Adaptation at the 2023 BBC Audio Drama Awards. In September 2022, she voiced Mia in Meet Cute's audio series A Mid-Semester Night's Dream, a retelling of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. In 2024, she made her West End stage debut portraying Eileen in Rosie Day's Instructions for a Teenage Armageddon.

In 2024, Chandran starred as Amelia in the Amazon Prime comedy film How to Date Billy Walsh and appeared in the film Fight or Flight. She was announced to lead and associate produce Song of the Sun God, a six-part drama series based on the novel by Shankari Chandran. In August 2024, it was announced that she was cast as Nefertari Vivi in the live-action adaptation of the manga One Piece.